Our approach to evolving leadership

By Vivienne Ladommatou

Leading as a team means shifting from cooperation between a group of strong minded individuals whose interests sometimes converge, to collaboration between a team of people each of whom sees themselves, and everyone else, as an integral part of the same whole. It means shifting from command and control from the top down, to communicate and collaborate in all directions.

Today's leaders must be both self-aware and self-regulating. An awareness of the impact of actions and words, their own and others, on performance and results, as well as the ability to identify and adjust our own behaviour accordingly, and to empower others to do the same, are core essentials.

To achieve this, self-reflection, self-disclosure and feedback need to be dynamic and on going, with the focus on identifying and evaluating personal values + work values,+ team values + company values, and on assessing the extent to which our behaviours match those values.

Self-awareness includes the ability to read and understand one's own emotions and their impact, knowing our personal strengths and limits, and developing a sound and accurate sense of personal worth and ability.

Self-regulation includes the ability to respond rather than react in any given situation, and to adapt easily to change, complexity, ambiguity and obstacles.

In an increasingly complex, entrepreneurial, non-hierarchical world, values are the lighthouses that act as a compass with which to navigate uncharted waters, while at the same time creating a sustainable, competitive advantage for the future, through the propagation of home grown leaders from within the organisation, and the promotion of self leadership at all levels in the organization.

Leaders must also be socially competent and display empathy. Understanding the perspective and feelings of others, and taking an active interest in those concerns, is vital to collaboration and communication. Leaders must also be astute in reading the climate and culture of the organization, and seek to understand how and why decisions are made.

Collaborative leaders employ transparency, display honesty and integrity, and earn the trust of their colleagues and associates through consistent behaviour, passion, purpose and engagement in the moment. They think and act like entrepreneurs, ready to take intelligent risks and use the resources and strengths of their organization to create new opportunities and shared value that benefits all stakeholders.

We see leadership development as integral to organizational business development, creating a shared purpose and language, and inspiring leaders to succeed as individuals, as teams, and as a company, while creating a direct link between personal development and daily work life.

The TNM learning methodology is specifically designed to model new leadership through collaboration and open communication. As a result, participants of TNM programs are able to model the same behaviors and achieve similar outcomes themselves. It is also the natural byproduct of the facilitation methodology used to deliver the program. The participants gain new knowledge through insight and are able to retain and apply their learning in their everyday work life, thus creating a sense of ownership and responsibility for the implementation of high performance culture based on individual leadership.

The core of our approach to leadership development is founded on the fact that the only way forward for leaders is to innovate and adapt. This means letting go of the usual leadership theory and models that have served us well in the past, to explore new more natural and sustainable ways of working together to achieve more satisfying results.

We create the framework and space for dialogue, and use facilitation and group coaching to evoke a fresh, new perspective on leadership that is relevant to today and sustainable for tomorrow, and for which there is an immediate sense of ownership.